Disciplined Doctor Database on Internet

The group Public Citizen has published a portion of its database of physicians who have been disciplined by state medical boards or who have been convicted of crimes. Currently only California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont are included on the site -- that's information on 6,700 physicians.

The site is at http://www.questionabledoctors.org . There are a couple of ways to view the site: you can browse a list of doctors for free or you can get detailed reports for a subscription free. From the intro page ( http://www.questionabledoctors.org/intro.cfm ) pick a state. You'll get a search interface and a note about the number of doctors in that state (there are over 3100 doctors from California in this database.) The search interface allows you to enter the first three letters of the physician's last name and specify which state you want. (You can also leave the name search blank and get all the results for a particular state.)

When you run a search you'll learn how many results that search got, with the invitation to "click here" for more information. When you click there, you'll get a brief registration request (name, e-mail, where you heard about the site, and whether or not you want to be contacted by e-mail.) Search results include doctor name, and a link to a summary report. Summary report contains the number of sanctions against the doctor, their city and state at the time of sanction, and who they were sanctioned by.

If you subscribe for $10, you can purchase 10 reports over 3 months. Once you've subscribed you'll have the option to view a full report. The site is very good at letting you know how many reports you've viewed and when your subscription will expire. Report information includes medical license number, offense, action taken, and the date of action taken. There may be multiple offenses listed by different agencies -- for example, a doctor may be disciplined by a state and by Medicaid.

Information for doctors in the state of Texas is expected to be added in July, with more states, including Utah, Arizona, and Virginia, expected online in September. The state information page will give you data on how the list of doctors was compiled and how that particular state compares with other states.

Posted to Science-Medicine